Mobile group Everything Everywhere ( Orange and T-Mobile ) and BT (BT Wholesale) have agreed with Ofcom to extend their Cornwall (South Newquay) based trial of superfast 4G Long Term Evolution ( LTE ) Mobile Broadband technology until the end of June 2012 (this runs in the 800MHz spectrum band).

The trial, which began in October 2011 (here) and has so far focused on several hundred users in rural St. Newlyn East, was originally supposed to end during "early 2012" but the operators now want more time "to investigate the application of 4G LTE in rural areas".

People in the affected area previously had either no or very poor fixed line broadband ISP download speeds of up to 2Mbps, although trialists have managed to attain an average speed of 7Mbps. That's just above Ofcom's national UK fixed line average of 6.8Mbps and miles ahead of Mobile Broadband's 1.5Mbps.



Both operators, with support from technology partners Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei, claim the trial is "successfully demonstrating" that fixed and mobile technologies can work together to provide an effective rural broadband service.

Unfortunately the 800MHz (790-862MHz) band, which had previously been used for the delivery of old analogue TV services, will not be auctioned off until Q4-2012 and it will then take another year or so for the release process to complete. As a result St. Newlyn East, after the current trial, might be left in the dark for awhile.